UT Health San Antonio Adopts More Comprehensive Tobacco-Free Policy

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UT Health San Antonio officials recently approved a revised tobacco-free policy that comprehensively defines tobacco-free areas on campus, expands who the policy applies to, and extends the list of prohibited items to cover vaping and e-cigarettes.

The university has had a tobacco-free policy since 2000.

The revised policy, which is part of the UT Health SA Handbook of Operating Procedures, makes all workplaces smoke- and tobacco-free that are owned, leased, operated, or otherwise controlled by UT Health SA. This includes prohibiting all forms of tobacco, cigarettes, cigars, pipes, vaping, and e-cigarettes inside buildings and on campus grounds, entryways, and parking lots and structures, as well as in vehicles.

This revised policy applies to all employees, staff and faculty, adjunct faculty, trainees, students, residents, patients, contractors, volunteers and other visitors when they are on campus or in a facility controlled by UT Health SA.

Violators will be directed to the street or sidewalk off UT Health SA grounds.

The revised policy comes after careful deliberation by the UT Health SA Eliminate Tobacco Use Committee, which was formed as part of the UT System’s successful effort to become the first entirely tobacco-free university system in the state.

Along with the revised policy, new tobacco-free signs are going up around campus in December 2017. Committee members also will be handing out “Healthier You” kits with stop-smoking tools at the UT Healthier You in 2018 event at 10 a.m. on Jan. 8 and 9, 2018, at the Academic Learning & Teacher Center at UT Health SA.

Earlier in 2017, the committee unveiled a new website, www.uthscsa.edu/tobacco-free, to promote the policy, an anonymous reporting tool for policy violations, and tobacco prevention and cessation resources for faculty, staff, students, and the community, including the Quitxt quit-smoking text-message program.

“As role models for public health in San Antonio, we’re excited to improve the tobacco-free status and resources of UT Health San Antonio to help our faculty, staff, students, and visitors have the healthiest lives possible,” said Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, who co-chairs the UT Health SA Eliminate Tobacco Use Committee and directs the Institute for Health Promotion Research in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at UT Health SA.

Tobacco is known as the single-greatest preventable cause of premature death and disease in Texas and the nation. It causes more than 28,000 deaths and $18 billion in tobacco-related disease costs a year, according to state health officials.

That’s why the UT System began its Eliminate Tobacco Use Initiative in 2015.

The effort, which sought to go tobacco-free at all its 14 institutions, achieved its mission in June 2017.

“Just a year ago, 3 of our 14 institutions did not have comprehensive tobacco-free policies in place,” said Dr. David Lakey, UT System chief medical officer and associate vice chancellor for population health. “Now they all do, and the work is continuing to improve not just the policies but the services offered as well, so that more people are quitting and fewer people are starting. It’s a … testament to the hard work of a lot of people who care passionately about improving and protecting the health of their communities.”

The UT System Eliminate Tobacco Use Initiative isn’t done yet.

Officials are working with UT Austin Center for Health Communication to start a new counter marketing campaign, with a single brand that will be customized for each UT campus.

“We know from research on past campaigns that simply stating the health benefits of quitting neither encourages quitting nor discourages starting,” says Dr. Mike Mackert, director of the Center for Health Communication, which is affiliated with both the Moody College of Communication and Dell Medical School. “Our campaign identifies the negative consequences of smoking, as well as the benefits of quitting, but does so within a larger emotional frame that emphasizes independence. Rather than associating tobacco use with rebellion, it associates quitting, or not starting, with autonomy and freedom. Smokers are both free from their addiction and free to choose their experience of a reward and what ‘freedom’ personally means to them.”

In San Antonio, the UT Health SA Eliminate Tobacco Use Committee also will continue meeting every other month.

The committee is led by Drs. Ramirez and Carlos R. Jaén, chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine. The committee also includes Laurie Wybenga of Nursing, Lowell Glassburn of Radiology, Rahma Mungia of Periodontics, Misty Gaeke of Human Resources, Ronda Lantz of Family & Community Medicine, Nancy Place of Creative Media Services, Richard Wettstein of the School of Respiratory Care, and Kip Gallion and Andrea Fernandez of the Institute for Health Promotion Research, all of UT Health San Antonio; and Lorrie Elizarraraz of University Hospital System.

Several members of the committee also attend meetings of the local Tobacco 21 Coalition that is trying to raise the legal minimum age for cigarette purchase to 21.

“Our goal is unwavering—we want to promote the health and welfare of our students, faculty, staff, patients and communities,” Ramirez said.